When I last wrote about the avant-pop musician in January 2023, he had just released a live album titled In Case I Die — and announced an indefinite career hiatus. Many clung to the hope their favorite singer-songwriter would someday return; others speculated this might be his last record ever.
Another year and a half passed without much word from Wood, other than scheduled Patreon posts and podcast appearances. Then, in July 2024, the fanbase began to see a stir: three new live recordings on streaming services; a re-edited drop of his 2020 release The Normal Album; and the sudden announcement of a new tour, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, which began in the fall and numbered 31 stops around the country.
Fans who were lucky enough to attend the limited-capacity, cabaret-style shows were treated with a performance that was equal parts concert and one-man play. Nicknamed “Slouching Towards Branson” — as in Branson, Missouri, aka the “Christian Las Vegas” — the story tells of Wood’s adventure in the Midwest during his hiatus. Main characters in this tale include a romantic partner with whom Wood reconnected a few years back, a rat named Casper desperate to consume her own injured foot, a fudge shop owner with a questionable sense of humor, an Irishman who all but held the couple hostage for a timeshare presentation, and, perhaps, some kind of higher power in the form of a flaming pair of pants.
On a deeper level, it’s about personal growth, self-actualization, and a cynical artist’s re-ignited love for his craft. Towards the end, Wood fondly reflects on a spontaneous mini-concert he gave in Illinois, the first time he had publicly performed in almost two years — a moment that helped catalyze his return to music.
Barring some unforeseen catastrophe, Wood says, there will be a filmed version of Slouching Towards Bethlehem out on streaming services sometime in 2025. For now, we invited the elusive artist to share as much — or as little — as he wishes.
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Atwood Magazine: The name of your tour was derived from Joan Didion’s 1968 collection of essays, Slouching Towards Bethlehem. Why Didion, and why this book?
Will Wood: The book had come to my attention from a musician I admire, and I found myself relating to some of the anxieties Didion seems to be expressing in it. We’re very different people in a lot of ways, but we’re both cynics and creative types who have had to struggle with trying to understand a quickly changing world.
Didion writes about a side of the psychedelic movement that I hadn’t read much of beforehand. Sure, Thompson was critical of Learyism, but he was still very much in the drug culture. Didion, while not exactly a square, provided a really lucid critical perspective that I never got from Wolfe or Kesey, since they were so keen on the spirit of the movement. I’m all for flower power and dropping acid before bombs, but seeing Didion talk about Haight-Ashbury like it’s the gates of hell was oddly relatable.
I’m around the age she was, and I am feeling as scared by the cutting edge of culture and the changing world as she was. Slouching seems to kind of be about loss, and the anxiety of change beyond one’s control. Much like she writes in the preface, I had been “paralyzed by the conviction that writing was an irrelevant act,” because as she said, the world as I understood it no longer seems to exist. Much like she said she needed to do, I’ve had to try and “come to terms with disorder.”
What does that line mean to you?
Will Wood: I think there’s something about surrender in there. Something about acceptance, even in the face of what appears to be the entropic end of everything we’ve valued or known. There’s no controlling the world, there’s very little one can do to redirect its trajectory or steer it away from even obvious disaster. I guess it also means giving up on being emotionally invested in feeling understood, accepting that there will be parts of my career I can’t stand, knowing that, even if I clarify the silly nonsense version of my life’s story I’ve heard about, it’ll still end up a story, and learning to let a sort of higher power take control — even if I don’t trust it to take care of me as I’d prefer to be taken care of.
For your two Halloween shows in New Jersey, you surprised the audience by bringing your band, the Tapeworms, onstage and performing together for the first time in five years. What made you decide to get the band back together, so to speak?
Will Wood: I plan to do some shows with them soon, so we wanted a lower-stakes opportunity to test out some new equipment and work with new crew/bandmates in an unprecedented environment. The last time I played with a band, we could get 200 locals if we twisted enough arms and talked it up for months in advance. It’s an entirely different beast when the audience is total strangers who see me as some kind of celebrity, and not friends of friends of friends who see me as the underground scene’s cryptid.
At those two shows, you played several songs from The Normal Album and In Case I Make It that had never been performed live with the band. What was that experience like?
Will Wood: Most of us had played much of The Normal Album in pre-studio rehearsals years ago, but ICIMI was very much a studio project, what with the pandemic and everything. So I was lucky as always to have a band who really know what they’re doing, and could help translate the ICIMI tunes into a live five-piece version that sounds different but retains the familiar spirit.
In your tour announcement on Patreon, you mentioned that you’re happier now in your private life. Any details you would like to share about that?
Will Wood: Haha, not really. Maybe I’d feel differently if it weren’t for that subculture of kids with Sue Klebold ostrich-style parenting. You give online fandom kids an inch, and they end up in your house at night rummaging through your sock drawer looking for “relatable content,” and then when they find socks instead, they freak out at the colors — despite it being pitch black — and assault you in your sleep. I’m already anxious enough about the “true story” I’ve been putting out, so I’m not looking to give them more to play with.
You also mentioned that you started writing music again. What can we expect from these new songs? Which of your previous works would you compare them to (if any)? Anything that will surprise us?
Will Wood: Some of it sort of sounds musically like something I would’ve written in my early 20s if I had the skill set to do so. Not lyrically though. Lyrically, I’m all over the place. Some of it’s more abstract than ever; some of it is aggressively blunt and dry. Some of it sounds more like my more recent stuff, but with more interest in challenging myself. Though that’s just what I’m hearing when it’s just me and the instrument. I think the instrumentation on whatever I do next is going to be pretty different.
What works of music and/or media have stuck with you lately?
Will Wood: Got a real kick out of Jesse Welles recently. Old Randy Newman records have been an absolute delight, definitely a strong recommendation to anyone who likes my more satirical side. Amigo the Devil’s been a cool listen, too. With books, I’m mid-move so I got distracted halfway through Osamu Dazai’s No Longer Human. Found Breakfast at Tiffany’s to be way more poignant and dark in its undertones than Hollywood would’ve dared to try and pull off. Poor Things was alright. Chris Dunne gave me a copy of Blindsight that I shamefully haven’t had a chance to even crack open yet. Waiting to finish Slouching Towards Branson to move onto Didion’s The White Album. I keep getting a few pages into things and then forgetting about it and starting something else.
What’s next for Will Wood, and for the persona we call “Will Wood”?
Will Wood: Writing and touring for me. I don’t have much say or interest in what the simulacra does; he lives in a very different world, and we’re very different people. Sometimes he’s good for a laugh. I like when he makes grand proclamations of values that people worship him for, but I’ve never expressed, or when he stays silent about stuff I can’t shut up about.
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© Jacob Feldman
© Jacob Feldman
